“Well, Victoria claimed this was urgent.” Unbelievable—the person responsible for firing Sylvia and obliterating our research department in one fell swoop has suddenly decided that fact-checking is important. “I don’t have your backup for the sex tape write-up,” May says.
“It’s my write-up. I tested it. I figured I didn’t have to fill out a form. I promise I won’t sue. Scout’s honor.”
“Well, what about your partner?”
She actually has a point there. “Graham won’t care. He doesn’t even read the site.” It’s true. He’s faked it before: Once at a dinner party a colleague asked him his favorite article of mine, and he turned red in response and nearly choked on his cream of asparagus soup. I saved him with, “Graham particularly enjoys the posts on how to follow your passions and discover your true inner self,” and everyone laughed—some a little too heartily, I thought—and then I gave my husband the cold shoulder for the rest of the night.
“OK, I guess that’s all right,” May says. Wow, that was easy. Mimi should hire more of these lightweights; it would make my job a cinch.
I buy the pants and stuff them into an old Digital Strategy Expo bag I saved from last year; this way, it’ll seem like I’m returning from a work event. Back at my desk, I don’t have anything pressing, so I reach out to P.R. contacts to get myself on invite lists to all the Christmas showcases. I do this every year to help out the swamped junior editors who write the gift guide. The gift bags are to die for, too; I haven’t spent money on holiday presents for ages.
My sight is suddenly obscured by two hands. “Guess who?”
“OMG, Regina!” I shout.
“How’d you know?”
“Duh, you must’ve smoked an entire carton on your way here. You know everyone in NYC quit ages ago.”
“Not you.”
“That’s true. Lemme bum one?” The entertainment director nods, and I yell, “Yippee!” Laura eyes me warily.
Regina and I head downstairs and sequester ourselves in the smoker’s corner by the back entrance. “So what’s the 411?” I ask.
“Did you hear we snagged the mean teen Janine from Worst Moms for the November cover shoot?”
“Oh, she’s the worst!” Regina and I share a passion for terrible TV. The best part of my job is that I get to host the morning-after chats with the Hers reality TV e-club.
“Have you seen the Real Housewives of St. Paul yet?!” Regina trills, and I nod like a maniac. I was skeptical at first, but those women are clueless and catty all at once; it’s amazingly juicy TV. “Hey, Zo, how about an off-site meeting?”
“Yay!” I clap my hands, thinking that’s it for the day, since “off-site meeting” is Regina-speak for the bar. Regina is like my BFF in middle school: It’s a party when she’s around, and she’s always got some mischievous scheme up her sleeve. I’m forever counting down to her next visit to New York.
We hoof it to the Mexican joint around the corner. “Laura sent me the notes from the Twitter seminar,” Regina says. She throws back a shot of tequila, sucks on a lime, then scrunches up her face into a citric wince.
“Ugh, I hate to admit that it was really fab,” I say. “Good thing Jonathan’s ambitions seem to revolve solely around eye shadow and blush. I don’t want him crowding in on my turf.”
“Trust me, you’re safe,” says Regina. “If someone told him he could no longer spend half the day giving himself a makeover, I think he’d curl up in a fetal position and cease to function.”
“But really, my Randiest Rachel handle has exploded. I’ve got forty thousand followers. And a billion brands have started following me and offering me free swag. Tomorrow I’m getting a massage from the guy who used to train that captured soldier guy on Homeland. Can you believe?”
“Good for you, working it.” We clink beers. “Listen, I have an idea. I’m thinking we can drum up our own little scandal.”
“Ooh! I’m in.”
Regina laughs, a smoker’s hack. “You haven’t even heard the idea yet.”
“I’m on the edge of my seat.”
“Here’s the deal, and no one else knows about this, so don’t go running your mouth like I know you like to do.”
“Who, me?” I say, though it’s true that secrets have a tendency to leak out of me no matter how hard I try to prevent it.
“Everyone will be grateful in the end—and the press will be epic—but for now this has to be hush-hush, all right?”
“Check. Now tell me, before I pounce and rip it right out of you!”
“OK.” Regina lays out the plan, and I toast her genius.
That night, after Graham has gone to bed, and I’ve ordered a blingy rose gold watch from a very convincing saleswoman on QVC, I log on to the Twitter account for my alter ego @RandiestRachel, and type in the message Regina and I planned: “Hey Kev. I’m totally hot for u, cutie pie. Come over stat. Thank Gd ur wife’s away so we can play!” Then I attach the photo, the full-frontal one I downloaded from Xtube, a boobalicious woman with short blond hair and deep tan lines. Her face is blurred, but the rest of her—teeny waist, crazy curves—is on full display. I’ve blogged about a Kevin; Rachel is supposedly seeing him on and off. This is the first mention of a wife.
In the Twitter seminar, Jonathan was superclear about the difference between direct messages and those that get blasted out to everyone, in this case to all of @RandiestRachel’s forty thousand followers. But apparently Mimi thought I was too ignorant about social media to lead the meeting; plus, maybe I was in the bathroom during that part of Jonathan’s presentation. Oops!
I can’t sleep all night, I’m so giddy with anticipation.
The first thing I do when I arrive at my desk, uncharacteristically right on time, is log on to Twitter. #RandiestRachel is a trending topic, my followers have ticked up to 56,000, and it takes me five minutes to scroll through all my direct messages. Amaze! My stomach flips as I imagine myself famous, a modern-day Monica Lewinsky or what’s-her-name who slept with Tiger Woods and then got a newspaper column and all those TV gigs. I knew I could do it! My voice mail blinks with eight new messages, and I see that Laura has added a morning meeting with Mimi to my schedule.
“Jeez, Zoe, what did you do?” Jane whispers. “Everyone’s freaking out. The Post has been hounding Mimi for a comment.”
“You’re kidding, the Post? OMG!”
“You don’t seriously think this is a positive thing. It makes us look so sleazy. You better come up with a good story fast.” This is exactly what Regina anticipated: first a bit of negative press, which would quickly fade into an excited buzz about the Hers brand, and then a bump up in subscriptions.
I step into Mimi’s office, assuming an appropriate sulk. Victoria and Regina are already seated, and Mimi reads aloud: “ ‘Hers blogger scandalizes the staid brand with racy Twitpic, plus home-wrecking to boot.’ ‘Hers sinks to all-time low with nudie writer photo exposed.’ ” Mimi has underlined the headlines in red ink, and after she reads them out, she tosses each paper my way. “Oh, here’s a good one: ‘What’s next for Hers? A line of pornography DVDs? A dating site for cheaters?’ ”
“Not such bad ideas,” I say, smiling at Regina, who strangely won’t meet my gaze.
Mimi looks at me with an expression of rage straight out of a cartoon; I’m half surprised steam isn’t shooting out of her ears. It makes me want to laugh and cry all at once. “Do you think this is some kind of joke, Zoe?” she asks. “Advertisers have been pulling out left and right.”
“OMG, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I say.
“I saw you goofing off in the Twitter seminar,” says Victoria. “Everyone warned me you weren’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but I never expected this level of stupidity. Do you realize how your actions have tarnished this brand?”
“Come on, Vic,” I say, my voice suddenly hoarse. I don’t appreciate this ganging up on me. I just have to make them understand. “Listen, Regina and I—”
“Regina first alerted me to this s
candal in the middle of the night,” says Mimi.
“I happened to be awake,” says the entertainment director, not looking in my direction. “Thank God for jet lag.”
“And she’s been working like a madwoman ever since, trying to talk dozens of publicists and advertisers off the edge of a cliff.”
“But everyone’s talking, right?” I say. “Won’t that ultimately be a good thing?” I’m repeating what Regina laid out for me yesterday, and meanwhile boring a hole through the crown of her head with my eyes. She won’t look up from her iPhone.
“Janine’s rep isn’t sure she wants her to do the cover anymore,” says Victoria.
Oh, this is rich. “You’re telling me that TV’s worst mom is scandalized by one little nudie shot? Give me a break!”
“What I don’t understand is, Randiest Rachel is a figment of your imagination, yes?” Victoria spits this out as if she wants zilch to do with my imagination. “So then who the heck is this Kevin?”
“Have you never heard of a little online flirting, Vic?” I say. “I thought we were trying to liven up this brand.”
“But what’s the deal with the photo?” she asks. “I mean, you’re a brunette.” Jesus, and she calls me dumb. Even Mimi gives her a look, like, Are you kidding me?
“Zoe, you can understand the difference between pumping in some fun new energy to the brand and alienating half of our subscriber base, right?” Mimi is wearing a scowl that reminds me of Louisa.
“So,” I say, “you’re telling me that the fifty-five-year-olds who flip through Hers between their freaking Bunko tournaments and their scrapbooking socials are signed on to Twitter and following Randiest Rachel?”
“That’s a very flattering view you have of our readers, Zoe,” says Victoria. “But guess what, those fifty-five-year-olds watch the Today show, which covered the story this morning.” See, this is what Regina was talking about—the press!
“Several A-list celeb moms have unfollowed Hers on Twitter and put out statements condemning the brand,” Regina says, finally making eye contact with me. I can see it in her pupils, the usual smirking glint replaced by a pulsing panic. I search in vain for the wink from last night that says, Trust me, this will work out wonderfully. Her blinks are anxious twitches.
The gravity of the situation hits me like a two-by-four. This has gone much further than Regina predicted. My mouth goes desert dry and my stomach gurgles with nerves. Until this moment I’ve taken it as a given that Mimi would go nuts for my charm and talent and probably promote me. Now I’m freaked out.
Regina continues: “It’s not just celebrities who are taking a stand that they don’t want to be associated with such filth. People are unfollowing us in droves and Hers is being taken off the shelves in Walmarts in two counties in Georgia.”
My head’s pounding muffles her words. My breath speeds up like I’m on crack. I gulp at the air, which seems suddenly absent of oxygen. I flash on an image of Graham’s boring dinner parties with his coworkers: Mostly they leave me out of their debates about politics and the economy and other snooze-worthy topics, and when I do chime in I can see the dismissive looks they think they’re exchanging so subtly. Graham always tells me I’m being ridiculous and paranoid, but I know what his colleagues think of me. Still, I’ve never really cared. I mean, every one of them would trade all that brainy babble for landing a fun job like mine. The thought of having to face those stuffy dinner parties as simply the unemployed wife of Graham—ugh, it makes me just want to give up.
“Listen, Zoe,” says Mimi, “whether or not this happened accidentally—”
In a panicked rush, I cut her off. “You know who’s blond? You know who that picture’s of?” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop it, and Regina whips her bleached bob around to face me. If she shows any indication of a truce, I tell myself, I’m prepared to backtrack and make peace. Just a flicker of a smile, or the tiniest gesture of compassion, and I’ll halt what’s coming, unite with my coconspirator and work to fix this mess as partners. But I watch as Regina narrows her eyes. What are you doing? her look pleads, but it’s with contempt, not concern. And with that, she seals her fate. I meet her steely gaze with a silent memo of my own: You’re out of your league, lady.
“Excuse me?” Mimi says. “Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?”
“Why don’t you ask Regina?” I say. She fits the profile: blond, California tan, curvy but fit (I’m betting she’s got a pair of perky silicone sacks tucked under that cotton scoop-neck), and not so old that it’s impossible.
“I have no idea what Zoe is talking about,” Regina says. She’s back to freezing me out, staring straight ahead. It’s infuriating; I hate to be ignored.
“Really?” I ask, indignant. “Then how about all the other shots you sent me along with that one we posted? That rose tattoo on your inner thigh?” Regina once told me about getting a tiny pink flower inked after a breakup, how it made her feel sexy again. My mouth is motoring faster than my brain, and I just keep chattering: “Regina wanted to post a photo of herself in her birthday suit. Who knows why? Probably to get some sort of sick thrill. I’ll be honest, I was skeptical. But she said it would get us loads of attention, and I went along because I figured when it comes to P.R., she’s the more experienced one. After all, she’s so much older than me.” At this, Regina’s jaw drops.
“Plus, she threatened to report me for slipping out of work to go to the Alice and Olivia sample sale yesterday. I admit it, I went! Guilty as charged. I’ve got the totally cute pants to prove it.” I can sense the energy shifting in the room, and I stand up and twirl around to show off my ass in my new jeggings.
“You took naked photos of yourself?” shrieks Victoria. Always several steps behind, that one.
“Zoe is a liar and everyone knows it,” Regina says, a tremble in her voice. “Have you ever heard her tell the same story twice? The details change so much you’d think she actually believed she could rewrite history.” I roll my eyes.
“Ladies, I don’t know what to say.” This from Mimi. “Both of your Twitter privileges are suspended and I’ll figure out what else by the end of the day. In the meantime, Regina, I’ll need a press release responding to this debacle, and Zoe, try not to set any more fires. Now both of you, get the hell out of my office.”
I saunter out. Regina catches my sleeve. “Zoe, let’s talk about this.” I hesitate, but I just can’t shake off her betrayal, those slitty eyes fixing me with such condescension. Screw her. I brush past.
Back at my computer, I open my in-box and type Mimi’s address into the “To” line of a new e-mail. First, I craft an apology—I know how unprofessionally I acted, and how inappropriate my part in this scandal has been. I got carried away in the character, and I’ve learned a big, important lesson from the experience.
I take a breath, start a new paragraph, and begin the list: “Snorting cocaine on set; spending whole weeks ‘working’ while actually sunbathing in Malibu; telling everyone within a five-mile radius that she’d jump at any opportunity to leave the hick, piece-of-crap magazine that employs her; and”—here’s the kicker—“calling Mimi ‘that fat cow in charge.’ ” I click Send, and it’s done.
Within the hour, Regina is gone. Not back to Los Angeles, but canned. I saw her in Mimi’s office, presumably trying to defend herself, but all the charges were true, so how could she?
Others take turns hugging her and issuing empty promises of how they’ll keep in touch, blah blah blah—the same rigmarole that goes down each time someone’s pink-slipped around here. But I remain at my desk, penning Randiest Rachel’s next blog post, an apology for disappointing her fans, and an allusion to the fact that she did in fact meet up with Kevin. I figure I’ve got a whole new plotline as Rachel struggles to do the right thing and abandon the affair, but still makes the occasional shameful (and sexy!) slipup. I watch Regina gathering her things, and I feel a pang—I will truly miss her—but I remind myself that I was only doing what
I had to do. No one dares throw me under the bus.
The next morning, I tally up the numbers. Randiest Rachel’s new blog post is the most popular one yet. And after the initial hemorrhaging of Hers’ Twitter followers, the numbers have ticked up to nearly 125 percent higher than two days ago. The magazine’s Facebook fans have doubled, our Web site page views have spiked, and nearly eight hundred Hers references have appeared in other media outlets within the past day. I’ve checked in with the ad sales team, who tell me they’ve gotten interest from new advertisers; granted, the companies are sex enhancement manufacturers and lingerie retailers, but still. Armed with this info, I approach Mimi’s office.
“Wow,” says Mimi, examining the data. “You really managed to turn this situation around, didn’t you?”
I walk out with a promotion to digital director. That night I toast with Graham, and we set up the video camera and go at it like gorillas.
14
Jane Staub-Smith, Associate Editor
Victoria plunks a pile of paperwork onto my desk, and it’s enough to set my head pounding. I’m not sure what’s with me lately. Though I only nursed two drinks through an entire Worst Moms marathon last night, I’ve got the kind of epic hangover that even a greasy egg-and-cheese and a monster latte can’t touch. Maybe it’s the sudden freeze-out from Mimi and Victoria—a result, I’m sure, of my fainting at the Corporate sales meeting a couple of weeks ago, mortifying everyone involved, and then failing to devote my entire existence to apologizing for the gaffe. (I did say I was sorry, but Zoe overheard Mimi and Victoria griping about how I clearly wasn’t remorseful, as if I should fall all over myself atoning for what was an involuntary physical reaction.) Whatever the reason, these days I’m chronically tired, no matter how much sleep I get and how little I drink.
I flip through the papers—a W-4, an I-9, 401(k) forms, information on an introductory session, and a computer training. It’s the welcome package for our new entertainment director, Johanna White. Laura used to handle this type of paperwork, but ever since my face-plant fall from grace, the responsibility has fallen on me. I don’t totally mind, since it means I’m in the loop early on the new hire. And boy did they hire her fast: Within twenty-four hours of Regina’s ouster, Mimi announced her replacement.
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