by Bridie Clark
I could hear my heart thumping in my throat. It was happening. Already. …
“That’s fine, Vivian,” Dawn replied matter-of-factly. “We’ll take over from here.”
“No problem,” echoed Graham, equally unflustered.
Vivian stomped away from the table in a huff. Then, after reaching the doorway of the conference room, she turned to face me with a radiant, completely incongruous smile. “I’ll swing by your office later, Claire,” she said sweetly, the anger now completely vanished from her voice. “Maybe we can grab lunch some day this week.”
“Sounds g-good,” I stuttered.
I turned back to Graham and Dawn, feeling oddly responsible for the fact that they’d both been screamed at. Both were busy with the stack of files in front of them on the table.
Was nobody else shaken by Vivian’s tirade? She’d been screaming at the top of her lungs! Did these people have nerves of steel? How could they be so unflappable? Had they grown so used to the abuse that it no longer even registered?
The last thought was the most terrifying of all.
“So, your second book,” Dawn proceeded, “is a tell-all by a fourteen-year-old student who’s had a three-year affair with his teacher. He was eleven when it started. Twisted stuff. We’re calling it Sex Ed, but that’s just a working title. Obviously we’ve got the kid teamed up with a ghostwriter. Carl Howard. We use him a lot, Vivian likes his work. All his contact info is on the sheet I gave you.”
“Third is a book on dieting by Alexa Hanley,” continued Graham, not missing a beat.
Must not have heard that correctly, I thought. Hanley was a teen celebutante most famous for her severe thinness. The celebrity weeklies were constantly running photos of Alexa looking deathly skeletal in a string bikini at the Chateau Marmont—alongside headlines like “Dangerously Thin?” or “Is Lexie Rexie?” The idea that Alexa Hanley would write a diet book couldn’t have been more ludicrous. What would she share … recipes for ice cubes and Ex-Lax soup?
“Vivian wants us to target teenage girls as the audience, obviously,” Graham said, looking worrisomely serious, “so you’ll need to work hand in glove with the art department to incorporate a fun, catchy design throughout.”
He shoved the folder my way. Oh God. It was for real.
“Doesn’t that seem a little … um, wrong?” I piped up. “I mean, marketing the advice of a celebrity who clearly has an eating disorder to impressionable young girls?”
Graham stared at me. He was a short, pudgy man with Coke-bottle glasses, and he looked as if he’d been sleeping in his clothes for a week. (I’d learn later that he had, in fact, been sleeping in them for days. Working on a book with a high-profile defense attorney had required Graham to pull a cot into his office so he could catch occasional pockets of sleep, and he hadn’t made it home since the previous Friday.)
“Vivian bought Alexa’s book,” Graham replied brusquely, opening the next file in his stack. Case closed, apparently.
For the next hour, Dawn and Graham methodically walked me through the projects I’d be immediately responsible for, punctuating every sentence with, “Vivian wants,” “Vivian demands,” or “Vivian expects.”
I got the point. On these first ten inherited projects, my job as an editor would be to execute Vivian’s visions. And that was fine by me. It’ll be a good way to gain insight into how she works, I figured. Besides, it wasn’t as if I were dying to run with any of the projects I’d been assigned—they didn’t exactly fire up my creative juices, to put it mildly. I’d take on more authority when editing the books I brought in myself.
“So, you got everything?” asked Dawn, tapping the table with her pencil.
“Think so. If I have questions, should I just—”
“Some questions Graham might be able to answer. But honestly, all the information we have is in those folders. Good luck, Claire. I know it’s not easy taking on hand-me-downs.” She smiled quickly and fled the room, and Graham, with a curt nod of his head, followed on her heels. I was left alone with the heavy stack of files.
It was time to roll up my sleeves and get to work.
One small problem: I had no idea where my office was. Or the ladies’ room, for that matter. I sat there for a moment, not sure what to do next—
“I’m so sorry.” Dawn popped her head back into the conference room. “Come with me, I’ll give you a quick tour of the place.”
“I’d like to welcome a new member to our editorial staff,” said Dawn, and I waved to everyone around the table. It was my first editorial meeting, now my third day of working at Grant Books. “Claire comes to us from P and P. We’re all glad to have you here, Claire.”
I smiled gratefully at Dawn and quickly scanned the room for more friendly faces. Hmm. What I saw were a lot of tired, tuned-out expressions. A lot of faces not even bothering to look in my direction. Phil Stern, a senior editor whom I’d met during Dawn’s office tour earlier in the week, was the only one who bothered to give me a genuine smile.
Editorial meetings were pretty universal across the industry. At P and P, they’d been forums for everyone at the imprint—editorial, publicity, marketing, and sub rights all together—to ask questions, air concerns, give progress reports, ask for second reads on submissions, and generally check in on what all the other moving parts of the publication assembly line were up to. I’d always enjoyed our weekly meetings, mainly because of Gordon’s irreverent sense of humor.
Judging by Dawn’s brief office tour, I’d already guessed that editorial meetings would be different at Grant Books. For starters, my new colleagues didn’t strike me as the most social group—or maybe they just warmed up slowly to newcomers. After Dawn had knocked on each closed office door, the editor ensconced behind poked his or her head out timidly, shook my hand, and then ducked back inside as if taking cover. Unlike colleagues at P and P, who lingered in the hallway to chat, the staff at Grant Books seemed to hunker down in their offices during the long workday, emerging only for food, water, and bathroom breaks.
My own office was larger than I’d expected, with a big window facing downtown. It was a far cry from the cubicle I’d inhabited just a week before.
“We might as well start without Vivian,” Dawn announced briskly, breaking the silence and bringing my attention back to the table. Dawn turned toward Karen Heffernan, our talented art director. Grant Books was famous for having inspired, inventive covers. While Vivian certainly played an instrumental role in that, Karen also deserved a good amount of the credit. So far, I’d been really impressed by her. A petite, cute twentysomething, Karen had a surprising amount of chutzpah—in a meeting yesterday, she’d unwaveringly stood up to Vivian and even managed to change her mind about something. I immediately liked her no-nonsense, straightforward style.
“She’s not happy with the cover for Whipped and Chained,” said Dawn. “Did she call you? She was trying to reach you. Really not happy.”
Karen sighed deeply. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m working on it. When do you need it for the catalog?”
“Last Thursday,” said Dawn, consulting her list.
Graham, seated at the head of the table, cleared his throat officiously. “Who’s looking at the proposal that just came in about the behind-the-scenes making of adult films?”
Scanning the group, I could answer his question based on who was blushing the deepest magenta.
“I am,” piped up Melissa, an editorial assistant just weeks out of college. “Vivian gave it to me an hour ago.”
“Well? So? What’d you think?” Graham demanded impatiently.
Melissa stared at a notebook in front of her on the table with such intensity that I half expected to see it move. I could tell she was shy and not so thrilled about talking in front of the group in general—having to talk about porn no doubt exacerbated her nervousness. “Well, it’s … um … it’s extremely rough,” she said after a pause. “Actually, the writing is incoherent. But I didn’t really have a chance to finish it,
because I had to update the submissions log like you’d asked and—”
“Well, that’s helpful, Melissa,” Graham huffed sarcastically. “But is the concept a commercially viable one? Assistants, that’s what we’re asking you to evaluate. We can fix the writing. That’s our job, in fact, to fix the writing—in case nobody mentioned it to you before. But will the book sell? And besides that, assistants, you should know that when Vivian gives you something to read, it takes precedence over anything else you’re doing. She needs feedback immediately. Do not waste her time. Her time is valuable. She expects you to formulate an educated opinion about how the book will fare in the marketplace, and she expects that opinion pronto.” A beet red dot appeared on each of Graham’s cheeks as he finished his diatribe.
I noticed Phil Stern roll his eyes ever so subtly.
“I’m sorry, I—” Melissa looked a little shaken. I gave her a sympathetic smile and made a mental note to go chat with her later that afternoon.
Before the tense dialogue could continue, the door to the conference room was flung open dramatically. Vivian swept into the room. Phil immediately scuttled out of his chair and made room for her at the head of the table. A hushed silence fell upon the group.
Vivian had a dangerous, mesmerizing quality. It reminded me of watching a tornado approach too quickly on the Iowa horizon: You couldn’t take your eyes off such an unbridled force of nature, even though you knew it would spell big trouble.
“People,” she said, glowering. She tossed her calico hair over her shoulder so forcefully that I could actually hear the swish. A few editors smiled nervously, shifting in their chairs. The wall clock ticked loudly. Everyone seemed oddly paralyzed by her presence.
Finally Dawn regained her composure. “Hello, Vivian!” she called out. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover this afternoon.”
If you’d been watching the scene on mute and then been asked to guess what Dawn had said judging only by Vivian’s facial reaction, you’d have surmised that some barbed insult had been flung down the table. Vivian didn’t say a word back to Dawn, but her face contorted as if she’d smelled rotten meat.
More loaded silence. Dawn just stared at her notepad.
“As you probably have heard,” Vivian finally said, chewing each word slowly and carefully before spitting it out, “the company is insisting that I give the assistants a raise. I’ve been on the phone with HR for an hour trying to understand why the fuck I have to pay higher salaries out of my editorial budget when they were the ones who bent over to get raped by the fucking unions last year.” Her voice was growing louder in a crescendo of rage. “But apparently they are taking me down with them! As usual! This company is fucking bleeding me dry! Anyway, assistants, you just got an extra hundred bucks a month. Live it up.”
Everyone at the table kept their eyes trained down, not wanting to make eye contact.
“Well?” Vivian demanded. “What do I need to know about this week? Go around the table and tell me what you’ve been doing.”
What happened next was shocking. I watched in disbelief as a group of accomplished professionals took turns stammering through their notes, heads still lowered. It was as if the entire staff had wilted under Vivian’s scrutinous gaze.
Only one woman—a stunning blonde with an aquiline nose, meticulously made up, wearing an elegantly tailored black suit remained completely poised and professional when giving her update to Vivian. She was the walking definition of “pulled together,” from her simple, expensive-looking flats to her petal pink manicure. Maybe a little older than me, but not much. I hadn’t met her during Dawn’s tour or in the days since, but I hoped she might be a friendly ally.
“Lastly, Vivian, I was able to convince the author that the cost of the ghostwriter, photographer, and publicist should all come from his advance, despite the fact that we’d previously agreed to pay,” the woman concluded, clearly pleased with herself.
“Of course it should, Lulu,” Vivian muttered in a distracted voice. Then she zoomed in on me.
“Claire!” she bubbled excitedly. “Has everyone met Claire?”
Heads bobbed, but eyes stayed down.
“Hi, everyone,” I said brightly. “Very excited to be—”
“Oh, Vivian, I forgot to mention that Universal is showing strong interest in the film rights to The Stripper Wears Pasties,” the woman—whose name was apparently Lulu—interrupted.
“Tell me about it later,” Vivian snapped. “Didn’t you notice that Claire was speaking?”
I quickly mentioned some of the projects I’d be taking on, plus two books that I immediately wanted to bid on, and Vivian beamed at me as if I’d just split the atom.
“Kudos, Claire!” she cheered. “I hope everybody at this table learns from watching your initiative. Just a few days into her job here and she’s already bringing great books to the table! That’s what I’m looking for, people … a little get up and go!”
And with that, Vivian got up and went, whipping herself out of her chair and out of the conference room in one swift, efficient motion. The meeting hadn’t been concluded, and I could tell from the expression on Dawn’s face that she had several things she’d needed to run down with Vivian. Still, nobody moved an inch.
When Vivian was out of sight, Lulu glared at me. “Enjoy it while it lasts, Claire,” she sneered. There was real venom in her voice, and I involuntarily let out a tiny gasp.
Nobody seemed to notice the exchange. The rest of the Grant Books staff just shuffled out of the conference room, not looking in my direction.
“How’re you holding up, kid?” Phil Stern poked his head into my office. He was probably about five or six years older than me, but the bags under his eyes made him look older, and his thick mop of hair was already flecked with gray.
“I’m okay, thanks,” I said hesitantly. I was still a little upset over Lulu’s unexpected jab at the editorial meeting, but the last thing I wanted to do was fuel any office tension by talking about it.
“Don’t worry about Lulu, okay?” said Phil, plopping down in the chair next to my desk. “She’s been Vivian’s pet for a while. And this used to be her office—one of Vivian’s brilliant managerial techniques is to shift employees around to give us a false sense of promotion and demotion. Anyway, Lulu’s nose is out of joint. But she’ll get over it. She’s just ridiculously competitive, is all.”
I nodded, still feeling a little discouraged but grateful for Phil’s outreach. “Thanks. I know sometimes it takes time to get to know one’s colleagues. I probably caught her on an off day.”
“Wish that were true, but you should expect her to remain difficult. Lulu’s entire life is Vivian Grant, and she’ll throw anyone under the bus if it’ll help her stay in good standing with the boss. Other than her, though, the people here are so much nicer than they seem at first. The thing is, Grant Books has such tremendous turnover, it can sometimes seem futile to make an effort with new colleagues. A lot of the people on the staff are almost as new as you are, and those who’ve been around longer sometimes get tired of welcoming in a new editor every three weeks. It’s a pretty fast revolving door here. Well, you’ll see. Just don’t take it personally. Everyone’s actually really great—or everyone except Graham and Lulu—once they see that you’ll be here long enough to merit an effort.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Phil. I appreciate the insight.”
“Yeah, and that brings me to my other advice.” Phil nodded, leaning forward in his chair and bringing his voice down to a whisper. “How to deal with Vivian. I’m sure you’ve heard that this isn’t the easiest workplace in the world. That she isn’t the easiest boss. That the survival rate is pretty low.”
“I’ve heard a few things,” I admitted, “but I’m sure they’ve been wildly exaggerated.”
Phil laughed grimly. “Well, don’t be so sure. I’m not trying to scare you, Claire, but you should know going in that most of the stories you hear about Vivian—horrible as they may sound—they’re actu
ally understated. The really crazy Vivian stories—the ones that HR pays ex-employees never to discuss—are kept under lock and key. And court order.”
“Like what?” I asked, a chill passing through me. Skulls in the supply closet? Human sacrifices at the office Christmas party? I felt like I was at summer camp, and Phil was the counselor with a flashlight pointed under his chin.
“Another time, another place,” he answered cryptically.
“If it’s that bad, how have you lasted four years?”
Phil’s eyes bulged with intensity. “By obeying the five inviolable rules of Grant Books, Claire. They were handed down to me when I first started working here, and now I pass them on to you.”
“Were you by any chance a theater major in college, Phil?”
“Why, yes … at Oberlin!” he answered, genuinely surprised.
“Just a hunch,” I laughed. “Okay, sorry, what are the five inviolable rules of Grant Books?”
Phil cleared his throat and held up his index finger. “Number one: Under no circumstances should you give her or anyone in this office your home phone number. Not for any reason. You won’t get a moment’s peace.”
“Really?” Vivian’s assistant had just e-mailed me asking for it this morning, and I hadn’t had time to write back. “But what if—”
Phil waved his finger to silence me. “Give her your cell, fine. Not your home number. Do I make myself clear?”
“Um, yes. I got it.”
“Rule two: Don’t trust Graham—nicknamed Himmler by the assistants—a whit more than you trust Lulu. In fact, trust him less. All the abuse that Vivian heaps upon him, he dumps on the poor assistants here. His tantrums are almost as legendary as hers. It’s terrible to see. Oh, and same goes for the entire HR department. A bunch of goons. They’ll betray you time and again if it means a moment in Vivian’s favor.”